Snakes in the grass

Posted: Sunday, April 02, 2006

ACCORDING TO its Web site, Gadsden Elementary School's mission is to "ensure that each student is provided an appropriate curriculum and nurturing environment that will advance cultural awareness, literacy, thoughtful decision-making and productive citizenship."

It doesn't say anything about a well-landscaped campus.

So why did an audit of the Savannah-Chatham County public school district audit find that Gadsden's administration spent thousands of dollars intended for academics on landscaping and beautification projects? Talk about a snake in the grass.

It's not as if Gadsden can afford to take academics lightly. In 2004 it failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress under the No Child Left Behind standards. It did make AYP in 2005, but it remains on the Needs Improvement list unless it makes AYP again this year. In 2005, Gadsden was ranked 1,092nd out of 1,148 state elementary schools by the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an Atlanta think tank.

Yet, its administrators believed they could spend nearly $6,000 in federal grants on lawn care, money that was intended to bolster its magnet education program (Gadsden is a performing and fine arts academy). The administration also spent $1,170 in student activity funds to pay the school secretary's son for lawn care. Goodness, how often did he mow the grass? Aside from that, he's not even on the district's bid list to provide that service.

It's not surprising then that the audit also found through classroom visits that Gadsden failed to implement "innovative practices" or other instructional strategies as required by terms of the grant.

It's bad enough when school officials misspend taxpayer dollars, especially when so many claim that public education is underfunded and use scarce resources as an excuse as to why academic performance is subpar.

But the real losers here are the students.

The government in this case made an additional investment in classroom instruction in the form of a three-year grant awarded to just five district schools; Gadsden received the most of any of them. And yet, the leadership shortchanged the kids, not only by spending a chunk of it on Miracle-Gro, but also by not providing them with the kind of specialized and challenging curriculum many of them sought when they signed up for the magnet program. Greener grass is no substitute for keener minds.

As damaging as the audit is for Gadsden, it also reveals a dysfunctional district central office. How could this occur under the nose of 208 Bull St.? Which other schools may have escaped scrutiny? How many other snakes are in the grass?

These transgressions happened before Superintendent Thomas Lockamy joined the district last summer. He can't be blamed for the lack of oversight, but he will be held accountable for fixing things so it never occurs again. Judging by the lack of decent software in the central office, its sloppy record-keeping and a failure by some employees to perform their duties, he's got his hands full.

Still, it's essential that he succeed.

It will be virtually impossible to assess school performance, and thus identify shortcomings that need to be addressed, if the bureaucracy is stumbling around in the proverbial dark. You can't hold students, teachers and administrators accountable if you can't account for them in the first place.